ECONOMIC REPORT 2013
15
Development of the UK Continental Shelf
In the 1960s, the discovery of natural gas in
the southern North Sea (SNS) was the first
step in the development of an offshore oil and
gas industry in the UK. Over the past 45 years,
42 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) have
been recovered from the UK’s Continental
Shelf (UKCS).
As a result of the early discoveries, production
of gas began in 1967 from the West Sole field
and other gas resources were developed
rapidly in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
with various large fields such as Leman,
Indefatigable and Hewett being quickly
brought on-stream. It was not until December
1969 that oil was discovered further north
in the central North Sea (CNS) and shortly
afterwards in the northern North Sea (NNS).
The first oil was produced from the Argyll field
in June 1975. Large, iconic oil fields such as
Forties (also in 1975), Brent and Beryl (1976),
and Ninian (1978) commenced production
over the next few years.
After the first exploration successes, the
ensuing surge in activity led to more than
25 billion boe being discovered by the
mid-1970s and, to date, almost 55 billion boe
have been discovered in more than 400 fields
across the UKCS. Just under 300 of these are in
production today, including thefirst,West Sole,
leaving about 100 not yet developed, some
of which may never be so for technical and
commercial reasons. Whilst it is anticipated
that production from the Brent field will cease
in about the middle of this decade, many of
these early large fields remain in production
and there are even plans afoot to redevelop
smaller, old fields such as Argyll, which ceased
production in 1992 and is now renamed Alma.
The industry has threemain goals in the coming
years. These are to: continue to explore for
and make new discoveries, increase the rate
of recovery from existing fields and extend the
productive life of the existing infrastructure,
all in a safe and environmentally responsible
manner.
Figure 4 overleaf shows that, as the UKCS
has matured, the rate of discovering new
resources has slowed, yet significant volumes
continue to be found. Even since the turn
of the century when production peaked,
4.1 billion boe of recoverable reserves have
been discovered. These discoveries vary in
size with some, such as the Buzzard field
discovered in 2001, now believed to contain
more than 700 million boe of recoverable
reserves. However, finds such as Buzzard are
rare and discoveries have typically been much
smaller since 2000, with the median size being
just ten million boe.
The region to thewest of Shetland is the latest to
be developed, with production only beginning
in 1997. Already, seven fields of 100 million boe
or more in size have been discovered; it is the
area of the UKCS that is believed to have the
most undeveloped resources.
The gap between the volumes discovered
and produced (see figure 4) has converged
in recent years as production from the early,
large fields continues, albeit at declining rates,
and new discoveries are being developed with
the benefit of the extensive infrastructure
available throughout the North Sea.
4. The UK’s Continental Shelf
